HP0009 Oswald (Ossie) Morris
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Timecode 01:33:14:23 to 02:20:13:09 Interviwer Ozzie Morris side three of them. Now Cine Guild is a name to be conjured with and try and tell us about your. Tell us about the first part of your Cine Guild experience. OSSIE MORRIS Let me just explain Cine Guild was part of what we called independent producers there was the archer's which was the mickey powell Emeric Pressburger group there was Cine Guild which was the Noel Coward . David Lean Ronnie Neame Tony Havelock Ellis group and there was one other and I can't think of it which was Frank independent though Frank Launder in the individual individual pictures I think they were the other ones and then later Ian Dow or import joined but I mean at that time it was the three I was contracted Chris Challis and I believe I've been corrected Chris was in the Air Force not the Navy I thought it was there I thought he was the Navy. SPEAKER: M5 And the three of us were contracted to operate for these companies. I work for Cine Guild and Chris work for the Archers and. Ernie was sort of a flow between both of us. We are the first picture open studios after the war. Pinewood Studios the actual studios store it should go in one of the stages I think and they stored also these deadly Albermarles on their noses. In one of the stage without the wings because of wooden round the outside if it wasn't kept a constant term through autumn and fell apart and I could understand why and I believe they were stored on their noses there in the main offices of wired or were away from the main studio and I think the Prudential of one of the insurance companies have the offices. Anyway we opened up the studio with a picture called Green for Danger directed by a. Sydney Gilliat and photograph by Wilkie Cooper with Alistair Sim Starring in it and Leo Genn as well but that was my first film. After that. When I came Captain Boycott which was Frank Launders film in Ireland and during that time very. A. During that time. You know let me think we know we did. We did. We finished Captain Boycott and You. Know David Lean had. We simply know there was another film star to call Blanch Fury? and. The Guy Greene was photographing that Ernie Stewart was going to operate and in fact did start and they had a terrible accident. It was a street strick camera was on a crane and they had a breakaway set. The idea was that the camera was going to track through the window of us set into a room. Now they couldn't get the blimp through the window. So what happened was once the outside frame of the window was out of the frame of the camera they were going pull the front of the set. Aside so the camera crew go on the crane through the room. Well the timing had to be very accurate and. We haven't got very good equipment of those days the cranes were primitive and cut a long story short the timing went wrong and they didn't get the section of wall pulled away quickly enough and the Technicolour blimp hit the wall and snapped the whole blimp in-camera. Off the crane and that threw the crane hopelessly out of balance because we didn't have any safety systems in those days as they do now in modern cranes as an automatic safety lock if the balance goes the crane locks and thus they didn't have and the crane the man operating the crane had all the weight of the back he couldn't help it they drive down and it catapulted Ernie and he went right up to the studio did about three or four somersaults and came down and was badly injured I mean hurt his fingers broke his fingers and was pretty badly hurt. And. He went to hospital. And I was free I'd finished Captain Boycott and I was told to take the film over because they abandoned that set and went on with something else they had to keep shooting at artists under contract and that was my introduction to operating a three strip camera I've never even seen three strip camera before that and it was working with handles so I never worked with before and they are an. Eight o'clock in the morning plunged onto us set with. With a three strip camera. But luckily I did know a Guy Green and you Guy Green because I didn't mean to say that when I left the BIP way back in 1933 the assistant that was taken came on to replace me was in fact Guy Green and that was the first time and I didn't meet him again until. This accident after the after the war when I was operating a Pinewood I carried on and I did the whole of Blanche Fury operating then David Lean started Oliver Twist. I think I got the order right. I'm not sure about that. It's Either way round or the other way round and I operated for David on Oliver Twist again with Guy Green and then on a film called Passionate Friends with Guy Green. That's when David met Ann Todd I don't know whether. I. Well it's history now. I suppose one can record. David was married to Kay Walsh. Kay Walsh had been played the part of Nancy in Oliver and David was now directing Passionate Friends and struck up a very. Strong relationship with Ann Todd. Kay got to know. Used to come onto the set and asked me a lot of questions about what was going on. All very embarrassing because I think I didn't want to be involved. Sadly after that. David & Kay a were divorced David married Ann Todd. That happened during the 1948 during the making of Passionate Friends that all started out. I did one more thing John Paddy Carstairs who was a bit of a joke as a director. Occasionally because we were we were under contract had to do that we were just assigned to and I have to do this Jeff Unson? was photographing and I did this film for John Paddy Carstairs and then after that Ronnie Neame would I like to photograph a film Saw This Is Us. Yes I love to photograph. Gonna do a film called Golden Salamander And you can photograph it or charge was it QUESTION before you go on to your career as an lighting cameraman or you know talk about a lot of the art and craft of the operator. OSSIE MORRIS Yes. The the there were two erm Two types of camera which vitally affect the craft of operating. There was a direct look through camera which was that of a De Brie camera which is the camera I used during. before the war and there was the Mitchell camera with a side view finder which had a totally different concept which I was plunged into at the end. After the war. Now I have to tell you that when I came out of the war and went straight to Green for Danger I never operated with an Mitchell camera with an outside view finder in my life before and I had to quickly get the knack of it and it was terrifying trying to learn it because. It was a Brady? blimped Mitchell make sure we had the blip that overlap and the viewfinder must have been a foot away from the lens so the parallax problem was was crucial and very critical and I can remember. Many shots on Green for Danger as Sydney Gilliat was not the world's most creative man when it came to set ups and the masses of shots of the four people together. Panning one person from a door making it five people and I had to pan from the door on to these groups and I had to line the camera car remember if I had all of five people in the camera correctly I only had three and a half of them in the viewfinder. And I have to work out where the crossed lines was and it was most peculiar looking through view finder with only three and a half people in it and knowing that in the camera you've got five. And every time a shot was finished we always used to shout hold it hold it. And we quickly opened the view for the blimp swing the camera over and checked and we got the fire going. So there was a. Vast difference in concept between those two cameras. The Mitch the De Brie ruined your eyes very good. Compositions. The Mitchell was good for your eye it was terribly difficult. Getting compositions in the viewfinder and you have to adopt a whole different approach you you have to forget that you were really looking at three and a half people in the viewfinder. You have to make your brain realise you've got five people in there. Although you've only got three and a half and it really was quiet tricky in quiet difficult. One. we didn't have a crowd galas? in those days so you were a bit limited as to what you could do we can remove and all you could do was track forwards and backwards in a straight line.